


love drunk

by djelibeybi



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post LSH, Quiet Isle, basically the book canon equivalent of the post dentist laughing gas trope, book canon, i put v little thought into this please don't judge it too harshly, kind of, pure unadulterated schmoopiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23418742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djelibeybi/pseuds/djelibeybi
Summary: Jaime wants to have a serious conversation with Brienne. Brienne has just been given quite a lot of milk of the poppy.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 191
Kudos: 470





	1. the night before

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally the shmoopiest thing I've ever written. I'm actually embarrassed. Also I know that milk of the poppy is basically opium and probably doesn't have this effect but for the purposes of this fic let's just pretend it's the Westerosi equivalent of laughing gas, ok?

It takes the Elder Brother and his septons an interminably long time to stitch Brienne’s wound, and for some absurd reason (Brienne’s modesty, he knows, as if he hasn’t already seen her naked) they won’t let Jaime in the room while they do it. It drives him wild. Brienne, who almost hanged for him. Brienne, who led him into a trap to save a small boy and then killed her former liege lady to save his sorry life. Brienne, whom he has been unable to stop thinking about since he saw those blue eyes again at Pennytree and felt something shift, irrevocably, inside of him.

 _I love her_ , he realises as he sits on the ground, his back against the thick oak door that stands between him and Brienne, and almost laughs. _Gods be good, I love her._

It’s a surprisingly simple revelation. It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. It feels like the answer to a thousand questions, the solution to a problem he did not know he had. It clears his mind. _I love her._

And they won’t fucking let him see her.

 _I have to tell her_ , he thinks wildly, standing to pace up and down the mud path in front of the cottage. _I have to tell her the moment they let me inside. I have wasted too much time. She could have died._ He has no idea if Brienne feels the same, but she was willing to die for him, wasn’t she? _What is that, if not love?_

When they finally do let him in, however, Brienne is in no state for confessions of love. She is high on milk of the poppy to distract her from the pain of the freshly stitched wound in her side, stretching from her ribcage to her hip, and her beautiful eyes are glazed over; but they still light up when she sees him.

“Jaime,” she says happily. He cannot recall her ever being so happy to see him when sober.

“Brienne,” he says, releasing a breath he had not realised he was holding, and sits on the stool by her bedside, dragging it as close to her as possible. “How are you feeling?”

“I am well,” she says. “They stitched me up, but I can’t feel anything.” She scrunches her nose, suddenly puzzled. “Should I feel it? Should it hurt?”

“No, wench. They gave you milk of the poppy, to numb the pain.”

“Oh.” Her expression clears. She looks at him closely, squinting hard to make her eyes focus, and gives him a dreamy smile. “You’re very handsome, Jaime.”

He almost chokes. 

“Did you know that already?” she asks him, quite serious.

He does not know how to answer that. “Yes,” he says at last. There is no point in lying, after all. “Though I am not quite so handsome as I was.” He aims for a flippant tone, but he is not quite sure if he achieves it.

“You have always been handsome. Even covered in filth, you were handsome.”

He stares at her. He is so unused to compliments from Brienne that has no idea how to respond to them. Their usual back-and-forth is second nature to him now, but he does not know how to handle her when she is sweet and open like this. “My beard is going grey,” he tells her, and tilts his face to show her.

Clumsy with milk of the poppy, she reaches out to touch his jaw. It gives him a jolt; she has not touched him so casually since he was half-dead at Harrenhal. Her touch is as cool and gentle as he remembers. “Only a little,” she says, running her fingers along the stubble. “I like it. It becomes you.”

The sweet sincerity in her smile makes his throat tighten. _Control yourself, Lannister,_ he tells himself, _or you’ll be weeping like a child before this conversation is over._

“I like you like this, wench,” he tells her, trying to keep his tone light. “Mayhaps I’ll keep you on milk of the poppy all the time.”

“Oh, but I always think these things,” Brienne says matter-of-factly. “I just do not say them. I don’t know why. It seems foolish to me now.”

“I know how you feel,” he tells her with a wry smile.

“Will you hold my hand, Jaime?”

“Of course, sweetling,” he says, and laces his fingers with hers. He has never called her _sweetling_ before, at least not sincerely, but in this moment she looks so young and wide-eyed and vulnerable that it slips from his mouth as naturally as breathing.

“I am glad you’re here,” she tells him, nestling her cheek into the pillow. “I missed you, before. I was afraid Stoneheart would kill you, but she didn’t. I didn’t let her. She wanted me to do it, but I could never kill you, Jaime.”

Unable to speak, he lifts her hand and kisses it. She gazes up at him.

“I loved Renly, you know,” she says softly.

“I know.”

“But now I don’t think that was love. I don’t think of Renly any more. I don’t dream of him.”

His heart beats in the back of his throat. He strokes her hand with his thumb.

“I know love now,” she says. “Jaime, I—”

“Hush,” he says, mouth dry. Not now, she cannot tell him now, not when she is drugged and has no idea what she’s saying. He brushes his lips against her temple to soften the blow. “Tell me on the morrow, Brienne, if you still want to. We have plenty of time.”

He half-expects her to be hurt, but she just nods against the pillow, smiling contentedly. “On the morrow. I will. But what can I tell you now?”

He laughs. “Have you so much to tell me, wench?”

“So many things. I don’t know why I never told you them before. You saved me from a bear.”

“I know that, sweetling.”

“It was just me and I was so afraid, but then you were there. You came back for me. It was like a song.” Suddenly her dreamy expression turns sad. “I don’t know why they call you Kingslayer, Jaime.”

He fights a smile. “I think it’s because I slew a king.”

“No,” she says fiercely. “I mean, yes but you saved everyone. You told me. In the bath. You were handsome in the bath, too, even though you were dying. I still think about it sometimes, but I shouldn’t tell you that.”

His heart almost stops. “No,” he agrees, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “You shouldn’t.”

Brienne sighs. “People always speak ill of you, Jaime, and I hate it. They don’t know how you saved me from the bear.”

He caresses her hand. There is a warmth growing inside him, starting in his heart and spreading through the rest of his body, a warmth he has never felt before. “I’ve done bad things, too, sweet girl,” he reminds her, but his heart isn’t in it. _Let her tell me I’m good_. He wants to believe it so badly. _Let me believe her._

“I know,” she says. “I know you have. But you still saved me from the bear. And you shouted sapphires, and you gave me a sword.” Her eyes go round with childlike awe, as though she cannot quite believe it still. “A Valyrian steel sword.”

“And there could be nobody worthier to wield it. You are a true knight, Brienne of Tarth.”

She blushes. “Nobody sees me like that but you, Jaime,” she says quietly. “It’s as if as you see…” She frowns, trying to focus her drug-addled thoughts. “You see… you _see_ me.” She widens her eyes at him, as if imploring him to understand. Somehow he does.

“I do,” he assures her quietly. “And you see me too.”

She smiles. “That’s why I—”

He presses his finger very softly against her lips. _Gods, her lips_. “The morrow,” he reminds her. She nods.

There is a gentle knock on the door. The Elder Brother, reminding him that his time is up. Reluctantly, he gives her hand a final squeeze and then stands, his heart feeling lighter and freer than it had when he came in.

“Goodnight, Jaime,” she says and closes her eyes.

“Goodnight, wench,” he says, and leaves.


	2. the morning after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who asked for a sequel :))

Brienne wakes the next morning with a thumping headache, a sharp pain in her side and an inexplicable feeling of dread. The Elder Brother is already at her side with a bowl of porridge and a cup of water. He gives her a kind smile. “How are you feeling today, Lady Brienne?”

She takes the cup gratefully and drinks, but feels no appetite for the porridge, so he sets it aside. When she shifts to give him back the cup, the stitches pull and scream at her. “It hurts,” she admits hoarsely.

The Elder Brother nods. “It will hurt for some time. At night we will give you a little more milk of the poppy, to help you sleep, but it can be a dangerous substance. We would prefer to give you as little as we can.”

Milk of the poppy. Hazily, she remembers the night before, the pleasant fog in her mind. It had been like wine, but a calmer feeling, almost dreamlike, as though nothing was real. It had made her feel like she could do anything – say anything –

And Jaime had been there. _Oh, gods_. Panic seizes her. What had she said to him?

Half-formed memories come back to her, foggy and distorted. She remembers thinking how handsome he looked, so golden in the soft light of the fire. How gently he had smiled at her, even though Jaime was never gentle. He’d looked so beautiful. She had told him that, for a certainty. She had voiced every thought that came into her mind, she knows. She feels her cheeks burn with such sudden violence that the Elder Brother looks alarmed.

“Are you feverish, Brienne?” he asks, feeling her forehead.

“No – no. I am well, thank you. I just…” She swallows. “Where is Ser Jaime?”

“Ser Jaime is at breakfast, with Podrick and Ser Hyle. They are all anxious to see you.”

How can she possibly face Jaime? She shakes her head. “If it please you, Elder Brother, I would not see him.”

The Elder Brother frowns. “See who? Ser Jaime, or all of them?”

She hesitates. She knows Pod will have been fretting over her, and she wants to see him just as badly. Hyle she can do without.

“I will see Pod,” she says. “Not the others.”

Understanding dawns on the Elder Brother’s face. “Lady Brienne,” he says gently, “you need not feel embarrassment over anything you have said under the influence of milk of the poppy. It can make us say things we do not mean. Ser Jaime is wise enough to understand. He will not have paid it any heed.”

She _had_ meant them, though. The milk of the poppy had not changed her thoughts; it had only removed the inhibitions that usually prevented her from voicing them. Everything she had said was true, and Jaime surely knew it.

She remembers speaking of Renly, Jaime stroking her hand with his thumb. How lovely it had felt, looking into his beautiful face, her love for him enveloping her like a warm bath. Some days it felt like her love was drowning her, but last night she had soaked in it, basked in it, unafraid. She had wanted to tell him; she had almost told him. But he had stopped her.

She should feel relieved, she knows, but instead her heart sinks. He had stopped her, out of kindness, because he could not say it back. “On the morrow,” he had told her, twice. Knowing they would not speak of it on the morrow, or ever again.

There is a knock on the door, and the Elder Brother opens it. “May I see her?” she hears Jaime say, immediately.

She closes her eyes, wanting to sink down into the mattress, into the floor. There is a new pain now, an ache in her chest, to go along with the others. The Elder Brother looks to her for permission.

She summons all of her courage, which suddenly seems like very little. “Very well,” she says quietly. They will have to speak of it eventually, after all; better to get it out of the way now.

Jaime sweeps across the room, beautiful and urgent, and takes the same seat beside the bed that he had taken the night before. The Elder Brother slips from the room, leaving the door open just a crack.

“How are you?” Jaime asks.

She cannot meet his eye. “Sore,” she says. “But well.”

“They didn’t give you any milk of the poppy today, then?”

She flushes. “No.”

Jaime sighs. “Brienne, look at me.”

Reluctantly, she drags her gaze up to meet his.

“You remember,” he says.

She wonders if she should deny it, let him believe that she remembers nothing. It would certainly make everything easier for both of them. But Brienne cannot lie, and especially not to Jaime. “Yes,” she says.

Unexpectedly, he takes her hand again, the way he had the night before. That gentleness is back in his eyes, too. She had not thought to ever see that look from Jaime again. It is almost too much. She has to fight the urge to look away again.

“You were going to tell me something,” he says, running his thumb over her hand again, drawing circles on the back of it.

“Jaime…”

“Come now, wench.” His voice is soft, teasing. “You promised me. On the morrow, you said. Don’t deny me now.”

She stares at him. He is smiling, but there’s no edge to it. _Why is he doing this? Why would he make me say it, only to tell me he doesn’t feel the same?_

Her throat constricts, and she pulls her hand from his. “Why are you being cruel?” she whispers.

His smile drops. “ _Cruel?_ ” he repeats, eyebrows shooting up.

“Yes, cruel. I cannot help…” She looks away in a vain attempt to hide the tears welling in her eyes. “I did not mean… I would have kept it a secret forever, if not for…” She sighs, cursing her clumsy tongue. “It _pains_ me, Jaime,” she manages at last, and now the tears are flowing freely. “I am sure you find it funny, most people would, but it pains me, every day, every time I look at you. It will pain me even more if you taunt me about it. Please, ser, I beg you, just forget about it. Let us never speak of it again. That is the greatest kindness you could show me.”

Jaime stares at her with mounting disbelief. “Taunt you?” he repeats, shaking his head. “ _Taunt_ you?”

“Is that not what you were doing?”

“Oh, Brienne,” he says on an exhale, and then he kisses her.

She freezes. His hand cups her bandaged cheek, then tangles in her hair. It does not feel like a mocking kiss, or a taunting kiss. It is a soft, sweet, insistent, _honest_ kiss. Her mouth opens beneath his with something in between a gasp and a sigh, and he presses closer, kissing her deeper. Kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, and she kisses him back.

When he finally draws back, he kisses her forehead and her cheeks and her nose and her eyes, then rests his forehead against hers. “You ridiculous wench,” he sighs.

She cannot speak, or think, or open her eyes. She feels a giddy joy bubbling up from somewhere deep inside, somewhere in the depths of her heart that she didn’t know existed.

“I thought we came to an understanding last night,” he says.

“I was high on poppymilk,” she retorts. “ _Jaime_.” His name feels different in her mouth now that she has kissed him. She wants to say it a thousand times. _Jaime Jaime Jaime._ “I thought you were just being kind to me.”

“So I was being kind to you last night, but taunting you today? Your logic never fails to bewilder me.”

She opens her eyes. “Shut up.”

“I love you.” He is grinning at her.

Her heart swells until she feels it could burst. “I love you, too,” she says, and somehow, even without poppymilk, the words come just as easy.

"I know," he says, and kisses her again.

**Author's Note:**

> So embarrassed.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm on tumblr @djeli-beybi :))


End file.
